The
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on Friday unveiled its new online
complaint database. The site, www.SaferProducts.gov, for the first time gives
consumers a place to log safety complaints about specific products. The new
searchable database was authorized by Congress within the Consumer Product
Safety Improvement Act of 2008 to offer consumers an opportunity to review
complaints about allegedly unsafe products before they buy them.

In the new
database, each filed complaint is reviewed by the agency for up to five days,
and then manufacturers are given 10 additional days to add a comment on the
report, or request a modification, before it is published online in the
database. "CPSC stayed on time and on budget in building this new
database," said Chairman Inez Tenenbaum.
"Through SaferProducts.gov consumers will have open access to product
safety information that they have never seen before and the information will
empower them to make safer choices."

The
database launched on time on Friday, despite a recent House of Representatives
effort to shutter the effort entirely. In fact, the House recently approved
legislation that would block the CPSC from spending any funds to operate the
new product safety database. But the measure is part of the House’s approved
budget plan, which is now being debated in the Senate. Last week, Democrats on
the Senate Appropriations Committee released their own version of the budget
that specifically called for restoring the CPSC database funding.